


Titanium Rose

by alexandertheII, Willow1977



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence - Post-Hogwarts, Dark, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Physical Abuse, Ron Weasley Bashing, Slow Burn, Wizarding Culture (Harry Potter), Wizarding World (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:06:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 14,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22993672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexandertheII/pseuds/alexandertheII, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willow1977/pseuds/Willow1977
Summary: They were the “Golden Trio”. Heroes, defenders of the Wizarding world.What happens when not everything that appears to be Golden, is really gold?-on a temporary break from updates but will update soon-
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter
Comments: 91
Kudos: 227





	1. Author’s note

Author’s note:  
DISCLAIMER! I do not own Harry Potter or any of JK's chars. I just play with them, I make no money and get nothing from this. I am just a Fan of her amazing world. This is not a story for the faint of heart. It will get worse before it gets better. There are some trigger warnings right up top: non-con, Force, abuse, mental abuse, entrapment, angst, pain, slow burn. The non-con is NOT Harry related at all. There is Ron Bashing. Deal with it. 

Now, I want to say thank you to my wonderful beta, alexandertheII who has somehow reigned in my grammar and typos like a freaking champ! Any mistakes, screwups, etc are mine. And many thanks to the Harmony and co-writing group on Facebook. You all are the bomb!

Updates will be random as this is a difficult piece to write and is a work in progress. 

It will be finished though. I have ZERO plans on abandoning my work. 

The reasoning behind the name of the Story:

The reason why I decided on this name is Three-fold. 

One: Britain is known for being tied to Roses. Examples: the British war of the Roses, the Tudor rose, the term English Rose which is A very pretty English girl who tends to wear little or no makeup, has pale rosy cheeks, natural hair and is well-spoken and ladylike. 

Two: Titanium is a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength that is used in jewelry, watches, art and in medical devices and medical equipment. Titanium is also alloyed with gold to produce an alloy that can be marketed as 24-karat gold because the 1% of alloyed Ti is insufficient to require a lesser mark. The resulting alloy is roughly the hardness of 14-karat gold and is more durable than pure 24-karat gold.

3: It’s playoff the Southern prase Steel Magonia which means: ( mostly Southern United States term) A woman who exemplifies both traditional femininity as well as an uncommon fortitude.


	2. Apparation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How did she fall so far from Grace?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some trigger warnings right up top: mentioned non-con, Force, abuse, mental abuse, entrapment, and actual, written out angst, pain, slow burn. The non-con is NOT Harry related at all.  
> Now, I want to say thank you to my wonderful beta, alexandertheII who has somehow reigned in my grammar and typos like a freaking champ! Any mistakes, screwups, etc are mine. And many thanks to the Harmony and co-writing group on Facebook. You all are the bomb!
> 
> Updates will be random as this is a difficult piece to write and is a work in progress.

It was just after midnight and the air was cold, crisp with the feel of snow in the air that had not yet started to fall. The London street was quiet, save for the wind that had begun to pick up when a loud ‘Crack’ was heard in the small park across the street. From the shadow of trees, just on the verge of being their winter selves, the leaves all gone weeks ago, emerged a petite, female figure with long, dark and curly hair. If you blinked, you would miss her in the shadows.

Her appearance had taken quite a beating in the six years after the war. Her long brown curls were ragged and limp, the left side of her face was blackened, and her nose was most assuredly busted and had not healed properly afterwards. She wore a pair of thin, dark, worn-out jeans with rips in the knees and on the hip, which had fit her six months prior but now hung off of her hips on her far too thin frame. Her shirt was just as baggy and threadbare and was the color of old, dried oatmeal, as well as being at least four sizes too large for her. On her feet were cheap, grey house slippers and she carried neither a bag nor did she wear make-up.

The once bright, hazel brown eyes looked dull, and there was a sense of fear and hopelessness in them now that had never been there… not even in the worst parts of the war. Her shirt hid more blood and bruises and places that had not healed at all. On her right ring finger was the paler circle where a thin cold band had once lived, but she thrown it when she escaped that hellhole. She had never been a beauty, but now? Well, she was scarily thin, and haunted by things no one should be haunted by.

Few people, if any, would realize she once had been the loud, brash, brilliant girl who some had monikered the ‘Brightest Witch of her Age’. That is, if they even noticed her making her way, slowly, painfully taking each step toward the brick townhouse, hidden behind the carefully constructed wards. She didn’t even know if they would let her pass, and she had no way now to send any word she was out here.  
She had apparated to this place without her wand, not caring whether she survived it or not... Anything had to be better than staying where she had been. She could not take another swing from his large, meaty fists, not one more harsh, cruel verbal whipping, not another punch out of nowhere…

She had known she was on the verge of not being able to keep going. They had taken her wand months ago, when they found out she couldn’t give them what they wanted. So, she had taken a chance, even though she didn’t know if she would still be welcomed here.

Not anymore…

So much had happened in the past six years, since that terrible, horrible, bloody day at their alma mater.

She remembered that fight, Merlin’s balls did she ever remember it. They had lived in this little rag-tag flat above the Indian food place that always and forever smelled of burnt curry and his dirty dragonhide boots from Quidditch that he refused to keep clean. She had walked in, late from work at the coffee shop in muggle London, the only job he would allow her to have, to find him with his sagging pants down, grunting while he was doing what sounded like two cats in heat with the blonde form of Daphne Greengrass. It was not the first time he had cheated with the pretty blonde but, walking in on them going at it like a pair of bunnies on her dining room table, she had to admit that she lost all sense of calm. She had yelled at him because honestly, the rat bastard deserved to be verbally bitch smacked for what he had done. The blonde had left, deeply embarrassed to have been caught with the fiery red-headed Gryffindor. After that, well, all hell had broken loose.

Again.

He had called her frigid, told her he was gonna fuck anyone he wanted since she was such a cold fish and she could not do anything because she was just... a muggle-born so she had no right to complain about anything.

She had grabbed her wand to hex him, he had punched her.

He had hit her before, of course; little sharp slaps and ‘love-taps’ he called them after the fact, a pointy meat covered elbow to her ribs for not being willing to play quidditch at the Burrow, or a twisted and bruised wrist for being nice to Astoria Malfoy in Diagon Alley when she had been allowed to go out alone, or even leaving the flat at all, for that matter.

It had also been one of the last times anyone had seen her publicly.

In all honesty, he had been abusive for years, since well before that final battle. She had been so desperate for a home, a family that she turned a blind eye to the words, the little and not so little digs about her hair. First, her clothes were too modest, then not modest enough. And why didn’t she have bigger tits? He would compare her to other witches he worked within the Auror office, with their perky asses and bouncing breasts, said much prettier they were than her and her plain face.

Then, he had complained that she was not as good a cook like his mother, that she made more money than him, at least until she finally left the ministry at his demands for more time at home with him. He constantly belittled her intelligence, and one night, as punishment for a burned supper that he had been two hours late for, he had burned all of her beloved books; his wife didn’t need any stupid books. Then he had gone to the pub to drink with the other Aurors after locking her in the closet ‘so she could think about what she had done wrong’.

As if she was a child.

And that night, the red-headed former quidditch player had finally dropped any pretense of love or kindness. She shuddered as she stood there, staring up at the brick house, her thoughts racing as she remembered that night.

The screaming…

The punches into her midsection…

The repeated hard, sharp jabs of his cruel fists into the tender scar tissue on her belly and womb from that curse in the Ministry, that curse she had caught all those years ago, protecting her best friend. The best friend she had not even been allowed to see in years now, due to the redhead's jealous streak.

She winced as she kept walking toward the townhouse, remembering the sound of fake leather on cotton as he had removed his worn, cracked belt from his dingy brown trousers to swing it at her ribs and thighs…

The swearing at her for not giving him what he demanded from her, accusing her, hitting her until she was bleeding from between her legs.  
She had tried to grab her wand, she really did, but he snapped it, over and over and over. That sound of her wand being snapped, broken into pieces, it had felt as if part of her soul was destroyed when those freckled hands had just snapped it in half. How badly had it hurt to feel it be destroyed, to see her connection to the magical world so completely broken, much like her.

Thrown into the fire as he taunted, making it clear that, as far as he and the rest of the wizarding world were concerned, she was worth nothing, had never been worth anything, to begin with. So now the bookworm got exactly that.

Nothing.

It haunted her, even as he dragged her bruised and bloodied body by her hair into the guest room to begin his nightly punishment. It had haunted her for the past three months, trapped in that tiny closet in the guest bedroom, kept out of sight until he was ready to…  
She shook her head, even though it hurt; she did not want to think about what he had been doing to her.

Normally when he went out for his so-called ‘Tuesday night pub crawls’ or on a date with one of his mistresses, she would be locked in her closet, her hands bound so she could not move. He would remind her that, as far as anyone cared, she was dead, as if she had never even been a part of their world at all.

She looked at the wrought iron gate that was now the only thing standing between her and the walk up to the doorway. She bit her lower lip, wincing as she had forgotten about the cut on the lower half of her lip from the Quidditch ring Ron had taken to wearing after he had stopped wearing the wedding band. She knew if the wards did not let her pass that he would feel it, and she would not make it. She started to touch the gate, hearing that same hard, hateful voice in her head, taunting and belittling.

She forced herself to push the gate open, even as the words were repeating in her head.

What if her best friend really no longer wanted her around? What if he, too, really had decided she was worthless? What would she do then, where would she go?

Worse yet; what if Ron was there and they both would…

She shook her head again, braving the pain and refusing to let herself fall into that darkness.

No!

Abso-fucking-lutely not.

She could not think about that. She had to try. She had come so far that to give up now would be letting Ron win and she refused to let him beat her again.

She dragged herself up the stairs, pain echoing in each and every step. Her feet were bloody in places, her ribs ached, screaming at her with every upward motion her body made to ascend the stairs.

Finally, she had made it to the door of Number 12 Grimmauld Place.

She lifted her hand as the door opened, and there he was. Round glasses and bottle-green eyes, a slightly shocked expression on that face of his as she sank to the concrete stair under her, her legs refusing to hold her weight any longer.

“Hemione?” His voice asked as he looked at the woman on the step, the woman looking like she had gone through a war zone, even more so then the year they had spent on the run.

“Harry… I…” Her eyes closed, no longer able to stay open as the last of the strength she had, drained from her and she was surrounded by blackness.

Harry blinked in surprise, before half catching the limp, curly-haired female in his arms, and tenderly carrying her inside.


	3. Shaken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Same night, a different point of view Harry’s side) I own nothing. 
> 
> Edited 03/06/2020 for errors.

His Grace, Lord Harry James Potter, of the House of Peverell had spent the evening at Number 12 Grimmauld Place, in the Borough of Islington, London, going over the never-ending pile of mind-numbingly repetitive paperwork. In fact, it was so boring that he would honestly rather just say ‘sod off’ to it and kick back, possibly watching something on the telly, rather than dealing with more damn bureaucracy from the damn Ministry. 

He was working his way up to the position of Head Auror, even though lately he had been considering leaving the Ministry of Magic’s Auror Force entirely and finding something else to do with his life. Gods know he had his hands full with his place on the Wizengamot. However, there were still Death Eaters on the run, and he couldn't, with a clear conscience, just walk away from the responsibility he had been handling since he was eleven years old just yet.

He had dressed for being lazy: dark-green lounge pants, an old comfortably worn Quidditch shirt, which had clearly seen better days, and sitting there barefooted while he ate popcorn out of a plastic bowl in front of the telly, because, sod it all to bloody hell, the paperwork could definitely wait. 

His life after the war had not gone exactly how he had planned it; for one thing, he and Ginny had never gotten back together, as she had never quite been able to forgive him for being away for that year on the run. Also, while he had been gone, she had discovered that she had a thing for bad boys. They had managed to end up being friends, and he had, not a month earlier, watched her marry Blaise Zabini a former member of House Slytherin. He never would have thought so before, but the two of them were sickeningly happy together.

He and Ron had drifted apart after Ron and Hermione had gotten married. He had shoved his feelings deep down and given his best friend away to his other best friend at the Burrow. A couple of years had passed, and gradually Hermione just never came around anymore for game nights or to the pub. Ron had always said she was busy, working or ‘under the weather’. Harry knew Hermione was a bit of a homebody, much like he was, but he had missed her a lot. A few times, he had asked Ron to bring her by, but there had always been an excuse.

About a year before, he and Ron had one of their famous blow-ups. Harry had asked about Hermione again, having realized he had not seen her in a good six months and that prompted Ron to get … well, angry. He had accused his supposed best friend of trying to steal his wife from him to punch Harry, loudly proclaiming Hermione was his property and he ‘didn’t have to share her with the sodding Boy- Who-Lived. He had then stormed off and, not to be seen again by Harry, either at Ginny’s wedding, where the blow-up had occurred, or any other occasion. And Hermione, well she had not even been at Ginny’s wedding, and when Harry had asked, Ginny shrugged, telling him Hermione was more than likely ‘just being a stuck- up bitch again’, refusing to come to the wedding just like she normally refused to attend any event at the Burrow, these days.

Harry had tried to find his best friend, he really did, but it was like no one even remembered who Hermione Granger was. 

His ward alarm went off, letting him know someone at his door. With a sigh at being interrupted, Harry walked to the door and peered through the peephole, a messy froth of curly, brown hair filling his vision. Completely surprised, and hardly able to believe who it might be, he opened the door, and within moments, he had the rail-thin shade of his best friend in his arms; the very same best friend, who no one had seen in months. And her sudden appearance left him with one, pressing question.

What the fuck had happened to Hermione Jean Granger?


	4. Unexpected

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry seeks help from someplace unexpected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Sorry, it's been hard to write recently. I will try to have an update in a couple of weeks.
> 
> Edited 3/21/2020

Harry, understandably utterly freaked out, carried his wayward best friend into the blue sitting room, just off of the front door. It was not the nicest space in the house, but it was the closest and somehow, he had the feeling she would not much care about how the bloody room looked right this minute. He laid Hermione’s still formed down carefully, before quietly starting to panic over his friend’s obviously seriously fucked up condition. 

Bloody. Fucking. Hell. 

The green-eyed lord of Potter racked his brain, scrambling for who to call for help. Mrs. Weasley was out of the question, of course. The elder redhead still held a grudge against Harry for not marrying Ginny. Furthermore, the auror had a bad feeling Hermione's state had something to do with his former best mate.

“Self-righteous wanker…” Harry muttered belligerently. He brushed a few limp curls from the bookworm’s pale face, allowing him to see the fresh blood on the woman’s ragged hairline, and he made the decision. There was only one person Harry James Potter could call at a time like this who could be trusted to keep his mouth shut.

The tall man, who had taken to carrying around multiple wands due to his occupation, picked up one of them, the main one that never failed him. His fingers gripped the 11" long, holly wood phoenix feather cored wand, and with a well-practiced, precise circling of his wrist and a clear incantation of “Expecto Patronum!” called up his magic.

The thread of smooth, misty, ghost-like silver became the majestic stag, with its head held high and proud, as Harry spoke to his Patronus, giving him the whispered message and where to go, and quickly. 

The great, glowing beast made of mist nodded and ran off to do the wizard’s bidding. Meanwhile, Harry stood to get towels and a bowl of hot water for tea and to help clean the wounds. He knew when the healer came, they would have questions and there were no real answers to be had, as of yet. 

Within a few minutes, the floo in that disconcerting green, so much like the killing curse, and out stepped a tall, slender, ice-blonde man, carrying a thick, black leather doctor’s bag, muggle style. He was dressed in stark black, save for a crisp, cobalt blue button-down that peeked out from under the healer’s robes. Even now, both his bearing and choice of clothing, down to his dragon hide boots, reflected his upper-crust background. His long pale fingers gripped the sleek handle of the vintage bag as he stood to his full height.

Draco Lucius Malfoy, Lord Malfoy. Healer at St Mungo's for the Aurors and specifically Harry Potter’s personal healer. His silver-blue eyes looked about as he called out for Harry, his voice showing a great deal of familiarity with his patient’s tendency to get himself stuck in a jam. 

“Potter,” Malfoy’s familiar drawl sounded through the hall of Grimmauld Place. “You summoned me like a bloody house-elf, so this better be important. Where are you and what have you done to yourself this time? Am I going to have to put another body part back to where it belongs?” 

Draco’s tone was half serious, half laughing, as if it was not an uncommon thing to be summoned to Harry’s home in the middle of the night; in all honesty, it was actually more common than either of the two men were willing to admit. 

Harry stepped out of the blue sitting room, having just covered up Hermione with a blanket, and walked up to Draco, his green eyes looking both worried and relieved that someone who may actually know what the bloody hell to do was finally there, because he himself was way out of his depth

“Draco, after this long, don’t you think you can call me Harry?” he tiredly questioned the man he had by now known on much more amicable terms for years.   
“Potter, when you summon me after bloody midnight, I’ll call you whatever I damn want to call you,” the healer snarled back. “Now, you don’t look like you have blown any vital body parts off, no signs of spell damage, no blood or visible, open wounds in need of my excellent skills. So, what was so bloody urgent I had to cut short my evening with the lovely Miss Greengrass, other than the fact your hair is still a nightmare and you are bored and home alone?” 

One of Draco's blonde eyebrows arched up as he looked at Harry, noting the blind panic and actual fear in his look. The healer’s usual smart-ass smirk slid off his face as he spoke again, realizing something was seriously wrong to put that sort of look in the other man’s eyes.

“Harry? What’s wrong?” he now asked, much more earnestly than before. 

Following Harry’s pointed look, Draco walked into the blue room, pondering what in the name of Merlin had made the normally unflappable Auror seem so much like the teen who had just been chosen for the Triwizard Tournament, eyes wide and filled with a freaked out fear.

Entering the room, he could not help but blink rapidly a few times, as he realized that there was a woman lying on the loveseat. He moved over quickly to push the limp, brown curls off the face of the former Golden Girl, the bloody Gryffindor princess. When he saw the blood, Draco drew his wand and began casting the various spells that would help him find out how exactly to aid the woman lying there before him so unnaturally limp, all the while trying and fighting to stay professional, the only outward appearance of this being his tightening jaw.

“Potter, who did this to Granger?” he inquired with an almost clinical detachment; it might get easier to see something along the lines of this over time, but it never stopped being hard.

Harry shook his head as he replied, “I don’t have a bloody clue. I was sitting here, doing paperwork when my ward alarm went off and there she was on my front step, just passing out. I got her in here, saw blood and summoned you. How bad is it?”

Draco raked his hand through his ice blonde hair and growled.

“Pretty bad Potter,” the healer replied, now back to his clinical detachment. “She has multiple signs of curse damage, some much younger than those from the war, and likely adding on to those old ones. There are two broken ribs, a cracked jaw, multiple abrasions, cuts, lacerations, and contusions. I also detected an extreme case of anemia, underweight, malnourishment, dehydration and a major infection that looks like it comes from an infected wound in combination with a compromised immune system.” He took a long, shuddering breath and violently shook his head, almost as if to shake what he had said off of him.

“I will need to visually examine her for any outward bruises, cuts and other injuries, but I’d like her to be awake for that, considering what happened to her. It’s not pressing, and I’d rather have her consent.”

The former Deatheater kept casting diagnostic spells, and as the more he progressed, the more his jaw kept tightening. His eyes darkened as he read the results and a low, dangerous growl could be heard from coming from his throat. Harry looked over and paled as the expression on Draco’s face, so strikingly, worryingly similar to his father’s in full temper.

“Draco… what else is there?” he asked, almost dreading the answer now.

The healer stood and walked out into the, and a sickening crunch could be heard as his fist went into a wall. Draco swore loudly, sounding more like an aristocrat version of one of the Weasley twins than his usual, reserved self. Harry flinched hearing the stream of words come from Malfoy’s mouth but said nothing when the other man came back in, utter disgust filling his eyes.

“What…” Harry began but was quickly cut off.

“She was raped, brutally,” Draco bit out, almost like the words were leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. “I don't know how many times, but often enough that there is visible, serious damage to her body. In all likelihood, regularly and, as I said brutally, with all that internal damage.” With fury etched deeply into his face, he turned to look at Harry. “These health scans read more like a victim of that snake-faced bastard than anything else I’ve seen since becoming a healer.”

Harry’s fists balled up as he listened to Draco list up everything that had been done to his friend. He didn’t know who the fuck had hurt her, but never again. Never again was someone going to hurt his Hermione. He looked at the healer. 

“What can we do for now?” Harry asked, a good deal of urgency in his voice; he hated not being able to do anything.

Draco was already cleaning up the visible cuts on her head, before covering them with crisp, white bandages he had summoned from his bag.   
“For now, we get her cleaned up as much as possible, and when she wakes up, I’ll have potions ready for her to help her get better, especially for that infection.” Now, it was on Draco to sigh tiredly. “She’s going to need ongoing, dedicated care Potter. Magic is amazing, but even magic takes time to heal wounds, mental and physical. We also need to move her to a proper bed, and get her some clean things to wear, so those rags can be burned.”

Draco looked at Harry as he spoke. “We will need to have a woman here, someone who you trust to help her, Potter. I can send over two of my house elves to help; they’re well-versed enough in healing, and I can’t be here around the clock. She will need food, clothes, someone she can trust. I doubt she will want to have two men touching her after this amount of trauma. Any suggestions?”

Harry frowned, not sure who Hermione would trust, and who he himself would trust to keep their mouths shut. Harry did not date, had not done so in years actually, much to the disappointment of the Ministry and a few friends. With Harry still pondering the question, Draco’s silver-grey eyes narrowed and met his bottle-green ones, showing traces of the cold-hearted teenager he had been so many years before, and the blonde spoke, biting frost in his voice.

“And when you find out who in the name of Merlin's saggy ball sack did this to her, and I know you will Potter, you let me help punish the sodding biscuit sucking toadstool scum who hurt her.”

Harry looked at Draco and simply nodded, and the two former enemies shared a single thought, and they were in perfect agreement. 

Whoever had hurt Hermione Jean Granger was going to learn a permanent and very drastic lesson.


	5. Authors' note and update

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick update

So this is a quick note to let you know my beta is now a co-author of this series!  
alexandertheII is an incredible writer and a great person to keep me on my toes.  
We are hard at work at the next chapter and it should be up sometime in the next few days.

Please, everyone, be careful out there.

Wash your hands, practice self-isolation, and PLEASE don't be a hoarder.


	6. Old Faces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An old face has made themselves known.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many, Many thanks to alexandertheII for writing like.. 98.5 percent of this chapter. 
> 
> I know it's been awhile since we got a new chapter up but it's a good one!

With a groan, her eyelids feeling like they were gliding over sandpaper, Hermione blinked herself awake. Every part of her body that she could reliably feel felt like it had been trampled by a tumultuous herd of hippogriffs.

Angry hippogriffs.

Fighting down the pain that was beginning to overwhelm her, she made to rise from the comfortable bed, only for a hand to suddenly appear in her field of view, softly pushing down on her shoulder.

“Take it easy, Granger,” she heard a voice she had not heard in a very long time, speaking in a tone of voice she had never heard from this voice before. “You were hurt rather badly. I managed to patch you up, for the most part, but it will take some time. I have other patients to attend to now.”

With nary another word, Draco Malfoy, Draco Malfoy, left the room, his cloak swishing out behind him in a rather decent facsimile of the way Snape’s had, so long ago. Somewhere in the back of her head, part of her wondered if Slytherins had a class on how to make their robes do that billowy, sweepy thing. 

“Hello Hermione,” another, more breezy, airy voice now made its presence known. With as much haste as she could manage, the aching woman turned her head to the origin of that voice, only to be confronted with the large, tranquil blue, curious eyes of Luna Lovegood. 

“Long time no see,” the former Ravenclaw continued chattily.

“H… Hey, Luna,” Hermione just managed to utter out, completely dumbfounded the situation she suddenly found herself in. The last thing she could remember… yes, Ron had been ‘showing her her place again’, after that, everything became a bit fuzzy. She could just make out stumbling across a street, and maybe… Harry? No, that did not make sense; she had not seen her best friend in months, years.

“You’re at Grimmauld Place,” Luna confirmed her tentative hopes, allowing herself a small giggle in the process. “Fainted right into Harry’s arms. He was running in circles when he called me.”

The memories were becoming less fuzzy now, more distinct. She had been going down the street, hoping against all odds that she would still be welcome at Harry’s home after what she had done to him. He was supposed to be her best friend, and she had not spoken to him in… how long had it been? The need to find out more was suddenly replaced with an even more burning need, a need to see Harry.

Where was he? Did he not want to see her, angry about how she had just shown up on his doorstep after basically ignoring him for so long? However, she did not dare ask any of these questions out loud, both scared of the possible answers and conditioned, not to ask any questions as she was. She blinked her chocolate eyes slowly and did her best to focus on the blonde instead.

Instead, Hermione asked the question she thought she could get away with safely. “Why are you here Luna?” she questioned the younger woman sitting cross-legged on a chair next to the bed.

“Oh, that’s easy, silly,” Luna admonished. “Harry trusts me, and he thought I could empathize with someone who has been raped. Really, you’re intelligent, aren’t you?”

Another groan escaped Hermione’s lips; she should have known better than to have asked Luna Lovegood, of all people, a question. Generally speaking, you usually ended up with more questions than answers from doing that. That was, when what Luna had said finally began to permeate her mind to the fullest. Luna knew she had been… had been...

But no one was supposed to know. 

With a small whimper, Hermione began to pull into herself, making her form as small as possible on the bed, as she pulled the blankets up to her chin; oh, the embarrassment. The utter and complete horrification that.. That... Malfroy knew that... That she had been… Oh, Gods... Harry knew...! He knew she had been… hot salty tears started to slide down her face as she berated herself, for her weakness. She should simply have been stronger, seen through Ron earlier. It was just so obvious in hindsight.

“Oh, pooh,” Luna complained, bodily grabbing the shivering form on the bed, before pulling the blankets back down. “No need for that. It did not help me, and it won’t help you.”

“Help you when?” Hermione looked at the girl, slightly confused.

“When it happened to me at Malfoy Manor.” the sunshine blonde Ravenclaw said in a matter of fact voice as if she hadn’t just dropped a bomb in the room.


	7. Reflections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione and Harry reflect on everything.

The pale, curly-haired woman looked at the room around her, her body still coming down from the fine shaking in her hands and limbs, from just processing everything. Luna had gone downstairs to get tea and potions for her, stating she was in no condition to get out of that bed as of yet. Her mind was reeling from the bomb that Luna dropped. She had no idea that Luna, that sweet, semi-spacey girl had been… violated that way while she had been kept prisoner at the Manor all those years ago. In hindsight though, knowing what kind of animals Riddle had attracted, it did not really surprise her all that much. For a short moment, Hermione wondered why she had never told anyone. Then again, she had never really planned on telling anyone, either.

Hermione looked about the room, taking in the dark, blue-grey walls, that faintest hint of a damask pattern, the dark stained wood trim and floors. As the former Gryffindor looked at the painting of Hogwarts on the wall, she could swear this room was familiar as if she had stayed in here before. Was this the same room she had slept in, back when Sirius had still been alive? Whichever room it was, she felt... safe for a change. Not completely, mind you, but she still felt more at ease than she could remember feeling in a long time.

She laid back and began to think about everything Luna had told her, about her days at the Manor, about the… rape. How the lord of the manor himself had used the pretty Ravenclaw, and how after the war, Draco had made sure Luna got the help and care she needed to recover from it; as much as that was possible, at least. Now Draco, that was someone she wondered about; she would have guessed he was doing what he did from a feeling of guilt, maybe obligation to make up for the sins of the father, or some such nonsense. Then again, that would only account for the help he had rendered unto Luna, not becoming a healer, or helping her. He had nothing to do with the situation she had found herself in; that was all on her, for not standing up to Ron, not seeing through his charade earlier.

Elsewhere in the townhouse, a certain dark-haired, green-eyed wizard sat, looking at an old photograph of himself and the woman lying in a bed not three doors down from where he slept. In the picture, she was wearing this old, faded-blue T-shirt of his, and he was wearing a red shirt that she had given to him for his eighteenth birthday. She was laughing at something he had said, her dark caramel curls flying about in the sunlight while he had this almost carefree grin on his face. It was not an expression regularly seen on him. He set the picture down, on the dresser where it lived with the other photos, many of them including Hermione.

How in the name of Godric had she ended up like this? Seriously? This was the girl who had literally saved his ass multiple times when they were going through Hogwarts, not to mention keeping Neville Longbottom from blowing everyone up in Potions class. Her planning and spellwork kept them alive during that year on the run. Harry ran his hands through his hair for the umpteenth time and considered everything they had been through, together.

She was the one who had figured out it was a Basilisk in the second year, even if she got petrified in the process. He shivered a bit, remembering the long weeks of sitting at her bedside, talking to her after class, while she was frozen in place. She had figured out how to save Buckbeak and Sirius in the third year, and if she had not been around during fourth, he was pretty damn sure he would have ended up a Horntail’s snack. 

He was just having a really difficult time grasping how this bright, admittedly bossy, brilliant, wild, curly-headed witch had gotten into whatever it was that got her in this situation. He did not even actually know WHAT the situation was. He had not managed to scrape together enough bloody courage to go and talk to his best friend since she had woken up; somehow, he felt like he had failed her, after all, she had done for him. Talk about not living up to that vaunted Gryffindor courage. The Auror was acting more like a sodding Hufflepuff; no, that was not fair either. Hufflepuffs were loyal, at least stereotypically. He was more like one of the pygmy puffs the twins sold at their shop, if not as cuddly.

Luna walked though, carrying a tray of tea, soup, and potions, pausing to look at Harry. The blonde waif had this way of cutting through excuses and just making you listen to what she was saying, in her own, endearingly weird sort of way. The words that came out of her mouth next, made Harry rock back on his heels.  
“You really should go and speak to her. She doesn’t need me, does not trust me nearly enough. She needs you, her Harry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, the next chapter.  
> The next few chapters will be addressing a few different things that readers have been bringing up and will be dealing with a lot of the abuse Hermione suffered. 
> 
> Also: please check out my co-author's work!  
> He's also on Fanfiction under the same name!  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/22389526/chapters/53492044
> 
> Next Chapter: Harry finally sees Hermione, face to face.


	8. Face to Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry finally seeks out Hermione.

Harry James Potter, Gryffindor’s golden boy and the supposed epitome of lion courage, was walking up and down in front of his fireplace. To anyone looking at him with an outsider’s view, he suspected he had to be looking like a caged animal, maybe a locked up circus lion.

In short, he was absolutely terrified.

Thoughts of the young woman laid up in one of his guest bedrooms were going through his head, none of them particularly good. He had been out of his mind, having her stumble into his arms like that, after such a long time without any contact. She had been hardly recognizable if he was being honest, and while one half of his mind wanted, no desperately needed to know what had happened to her, from her own mouth, not that of a healer, the other half was vehemently opposed to that idea. Truthfully, he was not sure he could come up with the strength she would be needing from him. Or maybe, that he expected from himself.

Eventually, he had to give Luna her due, though; he was Hermione’s best friend, nothing would be able to change that, and if the dreamy blonde was to be believed, she needed her best friend right now. Now that would always get Harry’s attention. If only he had known how much she could have used him, earlier.

Upstairs in the blue-grey guest bedroom, Hermione was sipping the tea that Luna had brought in before she left, carefully eyeing the row of potions she was to take. 

Her head had spun a bit as she read the note that came with them, listing exactly what they were for. Nutritional supplements, strengthening draughts, a blood-replenisher for the anemia, a tincture to ease the pain from her injuries as well as a few that were intended to fight off infections. There was even one to help repair her nerves from the spell damage. She took them all in the order that had been given to her, all the while pondering that, whoever had brewed them had Snape’s steady hand with a potion because these did not taste as bad as they could have. 

The witch did not know what she was going to do, about anything. She didn’t have a wand. She didn’t have any money to pay for the potions that Draco had made. She didn’t even have clothes of her own as Luna had taken the ones she had been wearing. How far she had fallen from where she had been when she graduated from Hogwarts. Currently, she was wearing what she was pretty sure was one of Harry’s old Hogwarts quidditch shirts and a pair of blue shorts Luna had given her. The frail woman wrapped her arms around herself, knowing at some point… soon, she would have to face Harry, and it scared the living pants off of her. How... how could she do this? How could she tell her best friend that... his other best friend had... done the things he had done to her?

Hermione pulled her legs up, wincing as muscles she had not properly used in months were stretched, her chin going to her knees, her mind wandering.  
A soft knock on the door, echoing through the silence like a gunshot, roused her from her musings. With a shaky voice, she bade who she both hoped and dreaded would be Harry inside. When nothing happened, she repeated herself, louder this time, if not more self-assured; it had been some time since someone had actually waited for her to call them into the room.

Harry was standing in the door, very much aware of how awkward he had to be looking, the way he was kind of slouched in on himself, with his baggy sweatpants and faded quidditch shirt. As he shot the woman on the bed a look, he realized that, for some reason, she was wearing the same top as him, only that hers was the older one of the two, the one he sometimes wore to sleep in. Leave it to Luna Lovegood to pick the one piece in his closet that he had twice.  
“Hey, Harry,” Hermione muttered, sounding so utterly down on herself it was physically hurting to listen for Harry; even one of her rants, berating him and… Weasley for not doing their homework on time would be welcome now.

“Hello, Hermione,” he answered, knowing he had to be sounding as unsure and guilty as he felt. After everything she had done for him, the time she had obviously needed him most he was not there. Slowly, steadily, as if approaching a hurt and cornered animal, Harry made his way closer to the bed; although in the current situation, he felt rather cornered as well. 

“So um, I guess… I owe you a big I’m sorry for just showing up here with no notice, right?” 

Her voice was unsteady and a bit hoarse and Harry could hear the underlying fear in its tone. She did not look at him, no... couldn’t look at him, as if all the fight that had once been there was gone, leaving behind a shadow of who she had been in before.

“You know you’re always welcome, Hermione,” he declared rather forcefully. Although he felt a bit guilty for the flinch she made at his tone, Harry was far from sorry for the sentiment. Even if not for the circumstances, she would never have to apologize for seeking him out. While his two sides were still warring within him, he simply closed in on his friend, slowly, sure that she would be unwilling to tell him anything at the moment, anyway.

So, instead of pushing her, he simply sat down on the chair Luna had occupied earlier, unable to help the stab of hurt as he watched the woman on the bed turn her back on him in shame. Without really meaning to, or any real indication as to why he did it, Harry reached out to gently place his hand on Hermione’s shaking shoulder. Again, there was a small flinch, but the moment of visible fear was quickly gone. Instead, she seemed to allow herself to unclench just a tiny bit; the way her shoulder pressed itself a little closer into his hand made Harry almost smile.

Almost.

Pulling together every last shred of courage he could muster at that moment, he started to lightly caress the upper part of her shoulder with his thumb, trying to silently convey that he was there for her, that she did not have to hide from him. However, he also could not help but be shocked by how slight her body felt, how bony she appeared to be.

The smallest of flinches happened as he touched her shoulder, purely from instinct after years of abuse, but soon she began to relax. She could smell that scent that was just...Harry. It was the smell of safety, mixed with the wax from his broom care kit that she remembered from hours of him polishing his firebolt in the common room. There was the faintest scent of blood orange from his body wash, that she recognized as one she had pointed out to him years before, mixed with the smell of the coffee on his breath. all smells of her best friend, her… safe place, her.. shelter from the storm. She felt his thumb through the thin shirt, grazing over her shoulder gently, carefully avoiding any bruising there. Her golden-brown eyes stayed down, still deeply afraid of, well she did not know why she was afraid of him, considering he was where she had always felt safest. Slowly her head leaned into his shoulder and chest and she whispered softly.

“I’ve made a real mess of things this time, haven’t I Harry?” she mumbled quietly, ashamedly.

Harry did not really know how to react to that, and he was even more out of his depth when he felt something soak through the fabric of his shirt. All the time he had spent blaming himself for not helping his friend, and she was not blaming him, but herself? Unsure of what exactly was expected of him, he pulled her into his a little more firmly by slinging his left arm around her shoulders.

“Shh,” he cooed, not really sure, whether it was helpful or not. “It’s not your fault what someone else did… I got you.”

From the way the pitifully wailing lump that was Hermione reacted, it did not seem like he had gotten through to her. Without anything more to say, Harry just stayed there for a while, holding her close, and listening to his own, personal hell.

Another person close to him, hurting, and seemingly beyond his abilities to help.

Bloody Hell.


	9. Hard Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> \- Hermione and Harry have a hard talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -I own nothing.-  
> \- Trigger warning: Cheating, Domestic Violence, Elements of non-con.

A pair of golden-brown eyes looked up into a pair of bottle-green ones, and Hermione took a deep breath, desperately telling herself that she could not keep hiding, and avoiding the incredibly hard discussion that had to happen. with her head, leaning on his broad shoulder, she sighed softly and she began.

“I suppose, I have to tell you… what… happened…“ she muttered into the crook of his neck; she was not sure whether he had actually heard her, but it was more for her own benefit, anyway.

Still, Harry had managed to hear her, despite the less than optimal conditions. “You don’t have to do anything, Hermione,” he reminded her, underlining his words with a gentle squeeze of her shoulder. “It would help, though. The longer you wait with something like this, the harder it becomes to prove. Evidence vanishes, alibis are being mysteriously found, witnesses forget things or embellish stories; the whole deal.”

If it was even possible, the auror felt his friend burrow even deeper into him, while her grip on his shirt, almost a copy of the one she herself was wearing, intensified. Her broken nails dug into the light fabric, holding onto him, while she did her best in an attempt to steady her breathing, knowing he was right; that simple knowledge, however, did not make her any less terrified. 

“It started with those little digs, I’m sure you remember them,” she sniffled, finally finding it in herself to voice what she had been through, at least partly. “At my intelligence, at my need to learn more. My bushy hair, my beaver teeth, not knowing wizarding customs.”

She took a small pause, almost as if taking a small pause before making a giant leap. “Just these little, small comments that others heard but no one ever said anything about; it’s not like he was really wrong, and it just started to add up.”

Having exhausted her reservoir of courage for the moment, Hermione went silent for a bit. From his own experience, Harry knew not to talk now; he might not have been a fan of awkward silence, but he knew it was silence she needed at that moment. So, instead of saying anything, he simply rubbed her shoulder with his thumb, gently, so she would not be remembered physically of the things she was already remembering verbally. 

“Little things like an elbow to my ribs when I started to speak my mind about something, pinches to my arm if I did something that embarrassed him or made him feel foolish,” Hermione eventually continued, although how much later, neither of them could tell. “Little reminders that I didn’t really belong here, cause I was just... a mud... a mudblood bitch and that I needed him to have any kind of worth or standing in this world.”

Despite not really wanting to think it, Harry was getting increasingly convinced she was talking about Ron. Subconsciously, he had probably been expecting this since the moment Hermione had collapsed in his arms, but that did not mean he enjoyed being proven right. In fact, he had never wished more fervently to have been wrong in his assessment of a situation.

Still being held by Harry’s arms Hermione curled in on herself a bit, her eyes staring into the distance, disassociating herself from what she was talking about, not letting herself feel the terror of what she had been through. 

“When I went back to Hogwarts to sit my NEWTs, he was really angry, even though I was back at Yule,” she shuddered a little, and Harry could not help but think that might have been one of, if not the first time things had gotten more… physical. He wanted me to marry him, and immediately start trying for a baby, but you know me; I really had to finish my education. When I started at the Ministry, he made it clear that… that no wife of his was going to be making more money than he did, so… I got a different job. I wanted to, and I tried to make him happy. It… never.. actually worked.” 

Hermione pulled her knees up to her chest, rapidly rising and falling, rising and falling with her shuddering breath in an obvious attempt to make herself smaller, while her whole body began to be wracked by sobs.

“I heard..rumors.. gossip about him… doing stuff, with other witches,” she sniffled. “I asked him and he just pointed out that if I.. I wasn’t so... frigid he wouldn’t have to be looking at other witches. He would remind me that… I lost every right to complain when I said I do.”

Hermione was now openly crying onto him once more. “I tried my best not to notice the times I’d catch him staring at some other witch’s body, or the late nights when he’d come home smelling of firewhiskey and perfume. He always went out a few times a week after work, saying he was meeting up with ‘the guys’, claiming I wasn’t welcomed because no one wanted to deal with the mudblood know-it-all when they were trying to relax after a rough day at work, like a real man.”

“Then… one night, I came home from a double shift at the only job he would let me work. He hated when I worked at the ministry, because I was making more money than he was,” the shivering witch recounted sadly. “It was unbecoming that a witch should be making more galleons than her man. I came home later than normal, and I walked in on him, with... Daphne Greengrass, going at it on the kitchen table.”

She was shaking now, with what, Harry was not sure, and her hands were tight fists, the broken nails digging into the pale flesh of her palms so hard as to draw a bit of blood.

“I got… angry... I yelled… called him an ungrateful cheating liar, after everything I’d given up for him,” Hermione lamented, sounding almost… sad, about how the confrontation had played out. “He yelled back... shoved me into the kitchen wall, I dropped my wand, trying to get his hands off my throat…”

Her skin was ice cold, and yet, observant both from knowing this woman and from his career in law enforcement could see the beads of sweat forming on her temples. It was cold sweat, the kind that formed not due to being overly warm, but was caused by a rush of pure terror. The same kind of terror that had her shaking yet again, not in rage, but in fear. 

Hermione’s pulse was racing, banging out a fast, unsteady, uneven, rhythm in her chest, and her heart… her heart was beating against the cage of her ribs as if it wanted to jump out, and she could hear her pulse thumping in her ears. 

And she couldn’t catch her breath... 

The world was spinning, and there was no air to breathe or to form words with.

It was something Harry had seen before, but he had never thought he would be seeing this in the incredibly strong person now curled in on herself on his bed.

It was blind, unfettered panic.


	10. Residual Snarkiness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry reflects on his own actions and past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all,  
> I am alexandertheII, former beta and now (however did that happen?) co-creator of this story. I don't really do trigger-warnings, but this chapter is rather tame, all things considered. Honestly, if this story has not triggered you until now, this chapter certainly won't.  
> As for why this chapter took so long, my co-author Willow is currently occupied with the real world, while I have been both working hard at my studies and been revenously attacked by multiple plot-bunnies for which I just had to write out a few chapters. So there's that.  
> Hope you enjoy the new chapter, stay safe out there, and please don't ingest/inject any disinfectants, even if the president tells you to (insert facepalm here).  
> alexandertheII

With a despondent sigh, Harry looked down at the sleeping witch in his guest room. Having seen a few panic attacks before, both from cornered suspects and wrongfooted next-of-kin, he had not been surprised with how tired Hermione was after he finally managed to calm her down.

Still, having seen something before with the professional distance of an auror on duty did not compare to seeing it in someone who had been as central a pillar to much of his life as Hermione. And, he was almost ashamed to admit it to himself, it was galling to see someone he had always considered so very strong, break down so completely.

 _“No, Potter,”_ he chastised himself. _“Hermione does not_ seem _strong, she_ is _strong. She just happens to have been through something few people ever have to go through. Better she breaks down like this, getting it out in the open, than let it fester.”_

He had once had a colleague, maybe even a friend, who had that happen to himself. The end result was certainly not something to be described as pretty. Indeed, it had turned out to be one of these occasions where he had had to deal with a very distraught next-of-kin.

Now musing on his own, darker memories, Harry was about to leave the bed and Hermione in peace, allowing her an opportunity for peaceful sleep he doubted she had been able to enjoy often during the previous months, even years, when he noticed something. Without him even being aware of it, something Moody would have handed him his ass for, his best friend had managed to curl herself up around his arm. It was not hard, or uncomfortable, otherwise it would have been apparent earlier, but it was enough to tell him she wanted him there, whether that be consciously or subconsciously. And who was he to deny her that little bit of comfort?

So, instead of leaving, he settled down with his back against the backrest, ruminating on some of his darker times in life. It would allow him to understand her a bit better, he reasoned to himself. Still, try as he might, he had no idea how she was actually feeling. Yes, he had grown up in an abusive household (who in their right mind and not out to kill someone would hit them over the head with a frying pan, after all), but did it really compare?

That was when it hit him; no, it did not compare, because it never could. They were two different people, with different outlooks on life. However, he was also probably one of the people who could understand her, at least a bit. They had both been hurt, deeply so, by people that, by rights, should have treasured and cared for them. After all, that was what family was for, right? And now, they shared being hurt by the small-mindedness of their families. He really could have gone without someone as good as Hermione getting such a vicious education in how it was to be Harry Potter.

Seeing her now, curled up as she was in a foetal position, circled around his arm, he could not help but chastise himself again. He had seen wives, and occasionally husbands, be the victims of abuse before, though admittedly most often not on this scale, so why had he not seen this? Looking back at it with hindsight, he realized that he actually had, or rather should have, seen it. He just had not wanted it to be true. Yes, Ron had always been more jealous than was healthy, and even during his final years in school, when that asshole of a kid he had been to Hermione sometimes, seemed all but forgotten, or maybe mentally suppressed, he still managed to make her second-guess herself. At the time it had seemed just like part of his personality; not a particularly likable part, but still.

And had he, Harry, not agreed with some of the things Ronald had said, from time to time? His, now definitely former, best friend had not been going about it in a productive way, but some of Hermione’s more… demanding character traits certainly could drive almost anyone up the walls. He looked up at the thought, only to notice that Luna had joined him at some point in time, completely unnoticed. Seriously, Mad-Eye would have been pissed with Harry for letting his guard down like this, even in his own home. There were still tales of his ‘unorthodox training methods’ being bandied around in the academy, after all.

There was a small knock on the door, with Draco entering soon after, at this point not bothering anymore to wait to be called in. In a weird sense, he was, now more than ever, the mirror-image of Ronald Weasley. From hated adversary to trusted confidante, he really had made the exact opposite transition the redhead had. His steel grey eyes were quietly observing the room now, landing first on Harry, then on Luna, before he greeted them both with a sharp nod of his aristocratic chin.

“Potter, Luna,” he said, eliciting another bout of annoyance in the person he insisted to call by their last name.

“Malfoy,” Harry replied, putting as much sneer in his voice as he could. “Come to gloat at the blood-traitors and the mudblood?”

A small smirk graced the healer’s face, almost invisible to anyone who did not know him very well. “No, actually,” he continued, much more jovially. “I’ve come to check in on our resident _muggleborn._ How is _Miss Granger_?” He had put a weird inflexion on Hermione’s maiden name, almost as if taunting anyone to correct him on it. Unsurprisingly, no one did; as far as Harry was concerned, the Weasley family was currently unworthy of being mentioned even in the same breath as the witch cuddling his arm, let alone in the same name.


	11. Coming Undone.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luna and Draco.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Willow here, sorry it's been a while for an update but this subject matter has not been easy to work with. 
> 
> In this chapter, there is a discussion of past rape, abuse, and a survivor's fury of such. 
> 
> You have been warned.

It had been a few days since Hermione had come to Harry’s home, and thankfully with the various potions, as well as Draco Malfoy’s surprisingly well-developed healing abilities and, did anyone dare believe it, bedside manners, she was actually getting better. Luna was always around, as was Harry, of course. He had taken a leave of absence from the department, citing ‘personal issues’. The Minister of Magic, utterly surprised that he of all people would ask for personal time, had granted him a full month paid leave. Harry rather thought he had shocked his boss into generosity.

Hermione slept a great deal of the time, her body needing the rest in order to finally properly heal and regain her lost strength; and even when she was not sleeping, she rarely left the comforts of what everyone had come to see as her bedroom. Through all of this, Harry was never far from her side, both as a means to facilitate human contact, as well as a life-size teddy bear, should the need arise. More than just once Draco or Luna had found the two curled up together, sleeping.

The blonde former Ravenclaw was in the kitchen, making some strong Earl Grey when the fireplace lit up with that particular green flame that was so indicative of floo travel. Under Luna’s watchful eyes, a tall, icy-blonde haired man stepped out and headed toward the oven, where he could smell the oatmeal raisin cookies Luna would often bake for anyone brave enough to try them. They were surprisingly good, too, even though odd ingredients would often find their way into the dough, be they cranberries (on the tame end) or some Bertie Bott’s beans.

Seeing the finished batch already cooling on a rack, the healer looked at one shrewdly before carefully biting off the smallest bit that he could hope would be enough to suss out what had wandered into Luna’s mixing bowl this time.

“Raisins with a cheese bean,” he observed. “You would not think it would work, but somehow, it does.”

The blonde woman smiled widely, happy that her work was being appreciated, even if it was Malfoy that was doing the appreciating. She had not, and would never, forget that the night she had been violated, used for the pleasure of all the simpering sycophants Riddle had attracted, it had been in his house. He had been upstairs, tending to his mother, wounded as she was from one of the Dark Lord’s ‘lessons’, but he might as well have been doing it himself, as far as Luna was concerned.

No, the future healer had not joined in on the so-called punishments doled out all too freely in that cold basement cell, had not ‘earned that pleasure’. Yet, he had stood by silently in her mind. Others, both older and wiser, as well as younger and stupider than Draco Malfoy, had been ‘just following orders’ before, and it never tended to end well. While Harry had moved past that, Luna had decided that she would not. She had not forgiven Draco or his mother, because their actions that had helped end the war had not been born from genuine regret, or the wish to atone. No, they had followed only their sense of self-preservation.

“Luna,” Malfoy began, and the woman he had addressed bristled with the familiarity.

She looked at him, with ice-blue eyes, flashing with cold and frustration. He, of course, had seen this in her eyes before; never, though, had Draco been able to bring up what had happened to her in his home, in the very same basement he had once learned the art of brewing potions from his godfather. In truth, he was scared almost witless by the prospect, while the feeling of guilt was only growing, the longer he let it fester, like an infected wound. A small part of him was probably hoping Luna would bring it up, even though he expected no redemption from her.

“Yes, Draco? Is there something you want to say to me, something you feel you need to say to me?”

The healer just stood there for a few moments, caught on the back-foot, Yes, he had hoped Luna would bring this up someday, but not now, without any way for him to be prepared for it. Luckily, or perhaps not, he was not expected to say anything for some time yet.

“Perhaps something you should have said back at the manor during the three long months I was kept in that basement?” the blonde, now so far removed from the usual spaciness, continued. “Or is it more of the public excuses that I don’t believe? Why is it suddenly important when it is Hermione who is the one being beaten and raped, but… I was obviously never important enough to stand up for me all those weeks.”

It was at that moment that Draco realized she was not looking him in the eyes anymore, her face marred by both anger, and some shame she was obviously trying hard to conceal. When she finally did look at him, he wished she had continued avoiding eye-contact.

“Yet you stand there, eating the cookies I made, joking, acting as if you have any right to be anywhere near me. As if you didn’t have any choice on those days when you were the one to bring the disgusting stuff you called food down to your prisoners as if you didn’t see the condition we all were in.”

By now, Luna was actually blaring her teeth, a look of angry disgust etched into her face Draco had never seen before. “As if you didn’t see me curled up in a ball, scared of everything, bruised, after each and every day one of those bloody monsters your family called ‘upstanding members of society’ would come down to have their turn with the blood traitor’s daughter, the crazy one. After all, I was a pureblood who had forsaken her rights, and a virgin to boot when your father grabbed my hair and slammed me against the wall, before he and McNair and Rowle and the Lestrange brothers took their turns, tossing a coin to decide who got to enjoy the blonde loon next. What did you hope you would get your turn, eventually?”

Luna hadn’t meant to start letting all of it pour out of her but for some reason, once she started it was damn near impossible to stop. Like water trapped behind a dam broken, she just let the rage flow out of her and down on to the only Malfroy within earshot. She was past done holding things in for everyone else.

“Why were you outraged over Hermione, but my fate under the people you called your allies and friends, under your own house, and with your cooperation, was fine?”

With one last angry, flaming breath, Luna pointed her wand at the plate of cookies and incinerated the whole batch.

“The least you owe me is a reason. And it better not be ‘I was just following orders’.“

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My co-writer has been a calming force during all of this. He's helped look at this strictly from a story point and keep me focused. 
> 
> In this story, we are seeing two drastically different points of view of what being a victim of rape and domestic violence is. 
> 
> Luna is the one who saw it during the time of war, and in her journey, she's just about had enough of pretending to be okay.
> 
> Hermione is the victim of systemic domestic violence and rape at the hands of a spouse. Both are brutal and horrifying. Their reactions and healing progress are different because they are different. It's something I am hoping we are capable of writing and portraying as honestly as we can, without pushing away those who have survived it.
> 
> I'm a personal survivor of long term abuse and rape, so I can see both sides of the issue in both Luna and Hermione, hence part of why it's a tough, complex subject to tackle. 
> 
> It's also why when I finally read books after seeing the movies, I discovered I really did have reasons to seriously dislike certain characters because their actions screamed: future abuser right here.
> 
> -Added this on May 31, 2020 in response to someone asking why it was taking us so long to update.-


	12. Chapter 10: Taking the blame...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get more real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long month. 
> 
> My cowriter is in deep study mode for school and I've been handling IRL rather rapidly. 
> 
> I've also got two or three one-shots that are biting at my brain demanding my time that I hope to at least get one of them done something before my birthday at the end of July.

“Why were you outraged over Hermione, but my fate under the people you called your allies and friends, under your own house, and with your cooperation, was fine?” With one last angry, flaming breath, Luna pointed her wand at the plate of cookies and incinerated the whole batch. “The least you owe me is a reason. And it better not be ‘I was just following orders’.“

Upstairs, holding a sleeping curly-haired witch, a habit which he quite honestly did not even want to consider trying to break, Harry smelt what had to be something burning. Wondering whether Luna might have gotten distracted by a book (not at all an uncommon occurrence), he moved to pull the blanket around Hermione as he slipped away to find out what was producing the smell. 

As the dark-haired Auror stepped into the doorway of his kitchen, he quickly took stock of what he was seeing, noting the tension between his two friends, thick enough to be cut with a dull kitchen knife. His eyes darted between the two, Luna standing by the far wall, eyes flashing with the kind of rage he had seen all too often in his years on the force in people who had simply, finally reached their breaking point. Indeed, she was looking every inch the fierce, pissed off witch she so obviously was, and admittedly, had every right to be. Honestly, Harry knew Luna to be quite reasonable in her anger, and seeing her like this was a bit of a shock and probably meant the target of that anger had really earned it.

By the smooth dark marble counter, next to what looked to be a platter of still smoking cookies, stood Draco, holding perfectly still as if caught in the fierce gaze of a predator; a predator who would rip his head off should he take a breath the wrong way. If one did not know him, they could be misled to think Draco was calm, but one look at the ‘prat’s’ icy steel eyes and the panic and pain echoing deep in them, Harry knew the healer was anything but calm, cool and collected. 

Over the years he had learned a good deal of what had happened in the Manor during the time Luna had been the elder Malfoy’s (bloody bastard) prisoner there. In fact, Harry had been the one to make sure Luna had gone to a mind healer, and he had been there when the nightmares had threatened to break the fey-like, all too fragile seeming blonde’s sanity. He also was well aware of what Draco had gone through, all the crap the healer never ever spoke about unless one managed to get him very, very drunk. Most importantly, Harry was aware of the serious threats against the only person Draco had cared about at the time; his mother.

He had forgiven Draco, after the trials. Granted, it had helped to watch the Malfoy scion turn his back on his father before Lucius had been pushed through the veil for his crimes. A son looking at his father, before the man had even been sentenced to tell him that his father had died long ago, back when Draco was a fifth year, standing idly by as his son was forced to take the Dark Mark. Harry, still watching the two stare each other down, did not blame Draco in the slightest, nor did he blame Luna for being royally pissed off. He had been wondered if Hermione’s situation might bring up some of the dark memories that Luna had fought against so hard, both alone and with her mind healer. 

Apparently, it clearly had.

Harry walked over to Luna, slowly, purposefully, until he was behind her, yet just visible enough to not spook her, and he put his hand on hers, the one holding the wand.

“Luna, put down the wand,” he said softly, just loud enough to be heard over the distance he had kept in his effort not to exacerbate her state. “He can’t hurt you. Breathe. Remember what Healer Young said about facing your anger head-on, without magic…”

Luna’s hand tightened around her wand as it stayed pointed at Draco, her eyes stony, her face contorted with fury. However, soon that fury started melting into pain and hurt, as Harry gently wrapped his hand around hers and began to slowly ease his arm down. All the while, the trembling woman kept looking at Draco, her expression stuck somewhere between demanding and pleading for an answer.

“Well Draco, Why?” she asked, her tone impossible to characterize. “Why is she so much more important than I was at sixteen? Why did you do nothing to help me, never even tried to stop them? Why in Merlin’s bloody balls was I not good enough to save?”

Draco took a ragged breath, visibly cursing at himself. It was quite obvious that his reasons would do nothing to calm the blonde witch, nor would any reason why Granger’s case affected him so violently help his case. He knew, more than most, she had ample justification to hate his family, maybe even Draco himself, for what had happened in that blasted manor. Even if he had not been the one to do it, he had also never done anything to help her. When, after a long moment of tense silence he began to talk, his voice was barely even audible, and Harry had to strain to hear everything.

“I deserve every bit of hate and rage you have to throw at me. I so wish I had done so many things differently,” the visibly distraught healer whispered. “I should have screamed and yelled and done more to defend you, to protect you, to protect all of you but I didn’t. I was too damn scared to do anything more than what I was told and even then I was threatened with the torture of my mother if I failed, which I did every single time.”

The now impossibly pale-faced man took a deep, shuddering breath. “You can not hate me more than I already do, Luna. I know this. I’m sorry I failed to protect you, to save you, to help you. I am so sorry. “ 

His voice eventually cracked midway through, and Harry gave him a nod, knowing that for Draco, saying this was far from easy too. Then again, it was not only something he had been needing to say, but it was also something Luna had definitely needed to say.

“I was a freaked out, scared kid,” he continued, having regained some of his composure. “All the time, my mother was being threatened and hurt by the same men who hurt you, Luna. I was a wretched, foul-mouthed bastard with only one thing I wanted to do: to keep my mother safe.” 

By now, Draco was pacing up and down along the length of the table, his words falling out of his mouth, not thinking of what he was saying, feeling every word come out like a sharp whip across his body as he spilled everything out.

“I have that fucking monster’s blood in my veins, and it makes me sick, and I hate myself for it, Luna. I hate myself for being too much of a coward to fight for you, for her, for so many people. How many people got hurt because I didn’t have the fucking balls to stand up to my father, to tell him to sod off?”

The healer looked at Luna, who was simply standing there, caught between shock and rage, and all of the disgust he felt for himself and his bloodline, and who he had been in following his father’s example was clear for everyone to see.

“So, hate me, Luna. Punish me if that is what it takes for you to feel better. Scream at me, hex me, punch me in the nose, burn every single cookie you bake if I try to eat them if that will make you feel better. Curse me till the day I die if need be. Merlin knows I deserve every drop of the blame you have.”

The room was tense, Draco now leaning against the back wall with his outstretched arms, deadly silent for what felt like hours. That was when they all noticed that there was now a fourth person in the room. A frail, curly-haired witch, clad in one of Harry’s old jerseys, the name Potter streaking over her thin chest, was standing in the door. Holding herself up by the frame, shivering with her bare feet on the cold tiles, Hermione was looking at Luna, almost as if she was waiting for the blonde to answer as well.

Clearly, she had heard more than each and every one of them had wanted her to, given her own recent experiences.


	13. Chapter 11: Words unsaid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes!   
> We have finally returned with an update. 
> 
> Don't complain about how long it's taken/ the length of the chapter, etc etc etc.
> 
> I know it's not as long as most would hope, but it is an update!
> 
> We warned you updates would be slow.
> 
> Real-life aka husband, escaped cats, alexandertheII being at medical school, mental break downs, random earworms that refused to let Willow write anything at all for a good month happened.

_The frail, curly-haired witch, clad in one of Harry’s old jerseys, the name Potter streaking over her thin chest, was standing in the door. Holding herself up by the frame, shivering with her bare feet on the cold tiles, Hermione was looking at Luna, almost as if she was waiting for the blonde to answer as well._

Luna stood there, staring at Draco, who looked broken, the pain and anguish laid bare for the first time in a very long time for everyone to see. Her wand, held in her hand, still shaking, her ice-blue eyes still lit with anger, but she was slowly processing what Draco had just said to her. 

In his old faded joggers, Harry stood behind the trembling witch, his hand resting on one of her thin, tense shoulders, knowing that this was something that had desperately needed to come out, yet, hating that his Hermione had happened to burst into this of all conversations. She hadn’t even had the opportunity to truly face what the red-headed menace had done to her, to them. His eyes darted between the two blonds, for the protection of at least one of whom he would readily go to war again.

The witch standing in the door simply let her dark eyes wander from one person to the other, obviously trying to process what she had heard. She had listened to a good chunk of what Draco had said, and while she didn’t know the backstory per se, she was also far from stupid and now quickly putting the dots together, including why Luna had been so different since Hermione had woken up in Harry’s house. She listened to what the blonde healer had said, and she knew first hand how it felt to be trapped in a no-win situation. Luna had every right to be furious with Draco over this, yet she could not help but feel a pang of sincere compassion for the impossible situation he had found himself in.

Replaying things that had been said and remembering hours of truly grueling sessions with her mind healer, remembering the coping strategies to use if she could ever confront those who had been there in that hell hole. That forgiveness was her choice to give or not to give, and only she could decide if someone had proven worthy of forgiveness. The blonde took three slow deep breaths, counting backwards in her head as she blew them out, calming the swirling emotions in her chest as she did so. She didn’t speak of forgiving nor did she give Draco any form of absolution, not now, maybe not ever. 

Harry, for his part, continued to stand behind Luna, not speaking, not moving, his eyes fixed at Hermione, and she could easily see the worry and fear in them, and she realized this… this was something she could do to help, if not herself, then at least this other witch who she felt some camaraderie with. Maybe it would even soothe these worry lines on the face of her best friend. She didn’t think it would help Draco much, but she wasn’t thinking of Draco, her focus was on Luna, understanding that the dreamy Ravenclaw understood far more than Hermione had known. 

“Luna?”

“Yes Hermione?”

“Can we sit and have some cocoa together? I think I’m ready to talk now.”

Luna blinked slowly, her vivid blue eyes coming to focus on the dark-haired witch in Potter’s jersey. 

“Alright, but we have no cookies.”

Hermione nodded, her eyes looking to the blonde witch who walked over to her, to take her hand.

“It’s alright Luna, we don’t need any cookies.”

The two witches made their way to the sitting room, moving slowly, mainly out of need, due to Hermione still recovering from her injuries She then proceeded to sit down on the comfortable, old and squishy dark blue couch, while Luna, settled on the floor, cross-legged. Though first, she covered her friend’s bare legs in a knitted throw of cobalt and burnt gold that she had made for Harry as a yuletide gift the year prior. Maybe the scent of their shared friend that lingered around the piece of fabric would help keep the witch calm, or so she hoped.

Hermione, head bowed slightly, her teeth worrying her bottom lip in an old habit, looked deeply into the blonde eyes of the witch sitting in front of her, unsure of how to ask the questions that she wanted, no, needed to ask.

“Luna, how did you.. I mean… are you okay?”

Immediately, she began chastising herself quietly; of all the occasions for Hermione Granger to lose her way with words, this was possibly the worst of them.

The former Ravenclaw, though, simply looked up, tilted her head, and did that thing she sometimes was prone to doing wherein, with a single glance, she read more from people than they had ever wanted to be known. Therefore, it was not hard for her to realize that, even now, her bushy-haired friend was more concerned about others than herself. She reached up and squeezed her hand, speaking softly.

“Better than I was earlier, thank you for asking,” she replied with the kind of levity that had long ago been such a crucial part of her entire persona whenever she would talk about the other members of her house. 

“How much did you hear?”

Hermione squeezed back, then replied in half a whisper, “ Enough to know that I should have done more to help you when we escaped the Manor back then. I’m so sorry Luna.”

Luna simply continued to stare into the other witch’s caramel eyes, though, and said very clearly, so as to make sure the message came across “What happened there was not your fault. When we got out of there, it was… “ She paused, seeking a word that could put it all together what it was like for everyone when they got out of that place. “Hellish. It was a nightmare. Dobby was dead, Harry was trying to hold it together, while you were literally passing out from the pain, and the ginger-haired arse was screaming.”

With a mournful shake of the head, remembering the one they had lost permanently that day, as well as the one who had almost followed. “Fleur and Bill were doing their best to manage things, but back then, we almost…” Now, she was actually choking up a little. “We almost lost you, Hermione. While they worked on patching you up, Fleur… well she was helping me with my injuries,” Luna continued, her voice clear, but still with that dream-like quality she always had. 

Bobbing her curls as she did so, the dark-haired witch nodded, keeping her focus on Luna, listening as she talked about the past. It gave her time to think, to consider everything, and it helped, as much as it hurt to know someone she knew and cared about had been hurt like that, to know beyond simple logic, that she could get through this. The two of them continued to speak softly, their words unheard by anyone but them, as bit by bit, Hermione was coaxed into talking about what had happened with Weasley. All the while, the eyebrows framing those deep blue eyes continued to rise, as painful experience after the painful experience was relayed.

The sound of quiet first quiet sniffles, then outright sobbing could be heard, as the two young women poured out their hearts to someone, finally, who had at least some chance of not only intellectually understanding them, but relating to them on an emotional level Harry, empathetic and dear as he was to them both could never achieve, bar by making the same experience. That was something neither of them would wish on their worst enemy outside of brief moments of irrational anger.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, two wizards were standing silently, awkwardly trading glances when each thought the other would not notice and occasionally looking at the small pile of ash that had once been a number of delicious oatmeal cookies.


	14. NOT UN UPDATE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NOT a NEW CHAPTER!

This is just to let everyone know this is on hold for the next month or two, due to some serious medical issues I am handling in my everyday life. 

I am having surgery in one week, and we will be going from there. 

This has not been abandoned, nor has it been forgotten, Just the everyday things have kept me away.

Thanks!

Willow


End file.
